


The Road the Wicked Gae

by lusilly



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: (Possibly) Supernatural Stiles, Alive Allison, Changelings, Claudia Stilinski Memories, F/M, Flashbacks, Gen, Light Hale Family Background, Slavic Folklore, Superstition, The Hale Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-25
Updated: 2015-08-18
Packaged: 2018-04-11 04:45:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4421873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lusilly/pseuds/lusilly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Allison sends Stiles a device that can supposedly detect the presence of the supernatural, he gets way, way more than he bargained for.</p><p>(Thirteen years ago, Claudia Stilinski asked a favor from Talia Hale.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> OK so: this is essentially a thought experiment that I shat out whilst brainstorming for the sequel to Lupus Venefica. It legit started out as a jokey crack fic but then got way out of hand way too quickly. It isn't great and is very tropey, but if you're in the mood for a fic about Stiles that flashes back to Claudia (and Talia), and also explores Claudia's illness & the Hales's past just a wee bit more, then this is for you.
> 
> Sometime vaguely post-3b. Stalia, background Scira. Senior year (bc the official TW timeline sucks). Not intended to have a super solid resolution because I'd rather y'all have fun imagining the what-ifs.

> _Stiles,_
> 
> _I heard something about you officially becoming an emissary, so congratulations I guess. Not like you were busy enough, right? I thought I’d try and find you something to make your job a little easier._
> 
> _My dad met with this specialty dealer a while back and came back with this. It’s kind of silly, I’m not even really sure it works, but if it does I bet you could use it. Hopefully it makes for fewer surprises._
> 
> _Good luck!_
> 
> _Love, Allison_
> 
> _PS: When Lydia visited last month she forgot her favorite lipstick so I just sent it back with this. Can you please give it to her? Thanks :)_

_\----_

            In his room, Stiles finished reading the letter and looked down at the small box before him. After she was almost killed by katana-wielding demon ninjas some months ago, Allison and her father had ended up moving away, back to where Allison’s mother’s family lived in San Francisco. She still kept up with them, although it was more and more in emails and letters, and less and less the daily correspondence of texts and messages they were used to. At least her Snapchat story looked ridiculously exciting.

            To be fair, Stiles suspected he kept in touch more than most of the others did, except for maybe Lydia. For some reason it took Allison leaving for him to realize how used to her he’d gotten, and he missed that foil to Scott’s simplicity, his morality, his gentleness. In any case, he’d been shooting her occasional updates on what went on back in Beacon Hills, and she had more than once replied with information that solved the case. He thought they worked well together, better than they had ever had a chance to find out before.

            Dropping the letter on his bed, he reached into the box, which was carefully packed with thick bubble wrap and packing peanuts. They spilled out onto his sheets and he rolled his eyes slightly, annoyed just a little bit at how damn professional she was. When he stuck his hand into the box, the first thing he managed to grab was a thin tube, which he carefully took out and placed on his windowsill in plain sight, so he would remember to give it to Lydia later. Then, returning to the box, he pulled out Allison’s gift to him.

            It looked like a cross between a walkie-talkie, an old Gameboy, and a P.K.E. meter straight out of _Ghostbusters_. He turned it over in his hands, then peered once more into the box, rifling around to extract a small card with a cute kitten on the front. Beneath the kitten’s wide green eyes, Allison had written _READ ME_ in her neat, precise handwriting. He did so.

            _This is a SURNATUREIL_ , she wrote. _I don’t know what it’s called in English. Supposedly it should be able to tell if anyone around you is a supernatural. Hit the big red button to turn it on. Let me know if it works!_

            There was a small doodled heart, and then her name signed once more. He felt an odd pang of something, then shook his head and cleared his throat and forced that pang from his chest. “Alrighty then,” he murmured, inspecting the device once more. “Here goes nothing.”

            He pressed the big red button.

            Nothing happened.

            After a few more moments, he regarded it suspiciously, looking for some other large, crimson button he was missing. There were none. Experimentally he banged it on the same windowsill where Lydia’s lipstick waited judgmentally, then he noticed a small compartment on the back. Batteries.

            “Dad!” he shouted. When there was no response, he swung his door open and headed downstairs, “Yo, Dad! Do we have one of those tiny screwdrivers?”

            It was then that he remembered his father was at the station today; it was the day after Halloween, and a particularly rowdy Halloween it had been. The Sheriff was still dealing with that. Stiles rifled through the drawers in the kitchen, then went out to the garage, where he finally produced a screwdriver from an old tool bench. Unscrewing the compartment, Stiles then went on a second odyssey to find two double A batteries. Finally, taking the screwdriver with him back into the kitchen, he turned the thing back over and once more pressed the button.

            A high-pitch wailing filled the room, so sharp and artificial it hurt Stiles’s ears. Immediately he jabbed at the button again, trying to turn it off, but the button seemed stuck: it took three more jabs and a bang on the table for it to finally shut up.

            Back in his room, he threw the thing unceremoniously under his bed, then went to his computer to compose a thank you message to Allison.

\---

            A few days later, Scott was at Stiles’s house; they were working on a history project together (or so they said, when really they were just hanging out and wasting time). “How d’you think it went on Saturday?” asked Stiles, clicking through Wikipedia page on a random trawl. At the moment he was reading a stub of an article about a 19th-century American pasticcio opera.

            Sprawled out on the bed flipping through their history book, Scott shrugged. “Hopefully better than last time. How did you even get such a good score, anyway? And on your first try, too.”

            “Dunno,” answered Stiles, without glancing up. “Would you believe me if I said I guessed?”

            “No,” said Scott.

            “Okay, well, good, ‘cause I didn’t. Honestly I didn’t even know I knew that much stuff. Just kinda all worked out.”

            “Yeah, but. 2190. That’s crazy good. I bet you’ll get in anywhere.”

            Stiles shrugged. “Your SAT score doesn’t matter as much as grades and extracurriculars and stuff. Plus you have a killer personal essay.” Stiles held up his hands, as if displaying a banner. “ _My life as a teenage werewolf…_ ”

            “You can write that one,” replied Scott. “I already wrote mine.”

            “Oh yeah? What’s it on?”

            “How much I love animals,” said Scott.

            Stiles turned and looked at his friend for a moment, scrutinizing him as if looking for any hint of dishonesty. When he could find none, he let out a long sigh and said, “Scotty, man, never change.”

            A smile blossomed on Scott’s face, big and wolfish, as his grins were lately so wont to be. Stiles returned to whatever it was that he was doing, and then, out of nowhere, Scott let out a shout, clutching his ears.

            Spinning around so quickly he almost toppled over his chair, Stiles shouted, “Woah, woah, what, what’s going on!” as Scott’s face twisted in pain, palms pressed tightly over his ears.

            “What,” began Scott, through gritted teeth, “is that - _noise?_ ”

            “What noise?” asked Stiles wildly. “I don’t hear any-”

            Then he stopped because, as a matter of fact, he did hear something. He dived to the floor, reaching underneath his bed to where the walkie-talkie-like thing Allison had sent him was buried under a pillow and several layers of clothes, its shrill beeping just audible in the otherwise quiet room. When Stiles pulled it out, Scott made a groan of protest, and Stiles punched the button a dozen times to no avail; in exasperation, he chucked it directly across the room at his wall, where it connected with a solid _thump_ and fell, finally, silent.

            Letting out a breath, unscrewing his face, Scott asked, “What _was_ that? An emittor?”

            “Naw,” answered Stiles, staring at the thing on the floor. He got up and crossed the room, then picked it up. “Something Allison sent me, actually.”

            One eyebrow raised, Scott asked, “Allison?” When Stiles did not reply - he was not sure what Scott wanted, or even expected, to hear - Scott continued. “What kind of something?”

            “She says it can sense when there’s someone who’s supernatural around.”

            “Oh,” said Scott. “So it turned on when it sensed me?”

            “I don’t know,” answered Stiles, somewhat skeptically - more skeptically than usual, that is. “Thing’s been turning on randomly and screaming at me, and I can’t figure how to keep it off. If it’s not some cheap novelty toy, which it probably is, then it’s definitely broken.”

            Voice measured, Scott began, “Yeah, maybe.” He paused, then continued, “Is there ever anybody else around when it goes off?”

            “Nope,” answered Stiles. “Just doing my own thing alone in my room, and boom. It won’t shut up. It woke me up in the middle of the night last night, so I covered it up so I couldn’t hear it. Should probably just throw it out, though.”

            “But what if it’s not broken?”

            Stiles glanced around at Scott. “What do you mean?”

            “What if it can sense the supernatural?”

            “So, what?” asked Stiles. “You think there’s some kind of - I don’t know, invisible creature hiding under my bed? Or maybe a troll, or something, that lives in my attic?”

            “No,” said Scott.

            There was a beat.

            Then Stiles began, “Oh, hey, no. No way.”

            Leaning across the bed, Scott pressed, “Why not?”

            “Because, hello! I’m as human as you get! If I had supernatural powers there’s _no_ way they wouldn’t have shown up by now. Do you _know_ how many near-death experiences I’ve had?”

            “But _what if_ -”

            “No,” said Stiles, with finality. “Like I said, this thing probably doesn’t even work.”

            “And if it does?”

            “ _If_ ,” replied Stiles sharply, “and that is a _huge_ _if_...then _maybe_ it could be sensing, I don’t know. Some leftover trace of the nogitsune. Or maybe some leftover magic, or whatever, from what we did with the Nemeton. But believe me, I am one hundred percent, completely, absolutely, grade-A, human.”

            Scott watched him for a second, then sighed and went back to the history book. “Okay,” he said. “If you say so.”

\---

            The week of Thanksgiving vacation was a busy one; an actual, honest-to-God, real-life troll showed up, worrying Stiles for one minute that there might in fact be one living in his attic, one exploratory poking-around up there with Scott and a flashlight proved otherwise. Peter and Derek both advised them to kill the troll, talking about it like it was some kind of animal, but Scott managed to gently guide it out of Beacon Hills and back into a hole in the preserve, into which it started burrowing.

            “I thought trolls lived under bridges,” said Kira.

            “Yeah,” snorted Stiles, “in kid’s stories.”

            Narrowing her eyes, Lydia asked, “How is this _not_ like a Mother Goose rhyme, Stiles?”

            “Are you kidding me? That thing had three sets of teeth!”

            “It kind of makes sense,” said Malia thoughtfully, tapping her chin. “Scott, didn’t he smell just like a mole?”

            Fairly, Scott replied, “To be honest, I’m not really sure I know what a mole smells like.”

            A new day, a new creature: they worked well as a team, even if Allison wasn’t there. Maybe, Stiles thought sometimes, because Allison wasn’t there: Scott often chose the kindest route possible, which sometimes was the longest and most difficult route as well, and Allison had never been the kind of girl to put up with dawdling around just to make sure everyone made it out alive. In retrospect, that had probably been the reason she and Scott didn’t work out.

            Back in Stiles’s room, the peculiarly-named surnatureil had interrupted him twice more, once more with Scott, which had prompted Stiles to throw it out a window (Scott, hurt that Stiles would treat a gift from Allison so glibly, had immediately retrieved it for him), and then once with Malia. That time had prompted him to get up, half-naked, muttering, “All right, okay, you know what, that’s _it_ ,” and trample all the way downstairs to the garage, clutching the thing, and he had the hammer raised in his hand before Malia grabbed his wrist, demanding to know what was happening.

            Much like Scott, she too thought the impossible. “What if you _are_ , though?” she insisted. “Wouldn’t that be so cool?”

            “What is it about this that you’re not getting?” he asked, holding the device up. “We’ve been through this before! I am pale and skinny and useless! I can’t even run a mile under ten minutes! If I were a supernatural, don’t you think that I would have _some_ kind of power to counter any of those things?”

            “Well,” she began, considering this, “you are _really_ smart.”

            He stared at her, then rolled his eyes, setting the surnatureil down on the tool bench. “You’re kidding me. You really think I have magical powers just because I got a good score on the SAT?”

            “A 2190 isn’t just a _good_ score, Stiles, it’s borderline _genius_ -”

            “I test well,” he retorted. “That’s it. And _genius_ is way overstating it-”

            She looked at him, eyes hooded in disdain. “I got a 900.”

            “That’s because your brain wasn't built for standardized testing,” he said, reaching out and taking her arms. “I mean, really, all that means is that _you’re_ the smart one and I’m the maladjusted automaton literally crippling my own mind in order to fit into the state’s perception of what intelligence is supposed to-”

            Reaching out to put a loving but firm hand on his mouth, she said, “Look, Stiles, I don’t care. But would Allison really send you something if she didn’t genuinely think it would help?

            He watched her for a few moments, mouth tight. Then, he relented. “Okay, fine, maybe I am supernatural. But if I don’t have any powers, and I don’t have any glowy eyes or anything, then how the hell am I supposed to figure out what I am?”

            “We could ask somebody,” said Malia.

            “Who?”

            “Lydia?”

            “Don’t you think Lydia would’ve told me by now if I wasn’t human?” he asked. “Plus that’s not even how her powers work.”

            Pausing seriously, Malia asked, “How _do_ Lydia’s powers work, anyway?”

            “In mysterious ways,” answered Stiles. “Who else?’

            Malia was silent for a few moments. Then, ruefully, she looked at her boyfriend.

            Stiles blinked. “What’s that look?” he asked, cautiously. “Malia. Hey. What does that look mean?”

            “ _Well_ ,” she began, “who seems to know everything about everybody, but doesn’t usually share - at least, not without a price?”

            “No,” said Stiles.

            She tugged at his hands. “Just talk to him once? For me?”

            Warily, Stiles watched her. Then he opened his mouth to speak, and-

            The door to the garage swung open. A tired-looking Sheriff Stilinski stood in the doorway, blinking against the artificial light. “What the hell are you two yammering on about down here?” he asked gruffly, with a tone of exhaustion only a fifty-year-old sheriff and single father could muster. “Do you _know_ how early I gotta get up in the morning?”

            “Sorry, Dad,” muttered Stiles, taking Malia’s hand. “We were just going back to-”

            At the look on his father’s face, Stiles looked at Malia, mind racing, then corrected himself. “Back to Malia’s house,” he said. “I was just going to. You know. Drive her back. Because she was here, studying, and…just...”

            “No I wasn’t,” said Malia.

            “Yes,” said Stiles. “You were.” Again, he said, “Sorry Dad.”

            Suspiciously, the Sheriff looked at the two teenagers in his garage. Then he headed back inside. “Get some sleep,” he said. “And, Stiles?”

            “Yes sir?”

            “Get some pants for your girlfriend, would you?”

            “Yes, sir.”

            He left them.

            So it was that a few days later, they were standing outside Derek’s loft. “Remind me why we’re doing this again,” said Stiles.

            “Because we want to know what you are,” answered Malia.

            “Human,” he said. “That’s what I am.”

            “Maybe,” said Scott, on Stiles’s other side. “But Peter knows a lot more than he tells. He could at least point us the right direction.”

            “You’ve got the thing?” asked Malia.

            Sourly, Stiles nodded, holding up the surnatureil. Then Malia reached up and knocked twice on the big door.

            A moment later, it slid open. Derek glared out at them. “You know,” he said, “I really don’t see why you keep having to do this at my place.”

            “Good point,” said Stiles, turning around. “Let’s go.”

            Malia caught him by the back of the shirt, tugging him forward. “Are you kidding?” Malia asked Derek. “Meeting with Peter alone is likely to get one of us killed.”

            From behind Derek, a tall man turned around, grinning at them. “Really, Malia?” he asked, lip jutting out in a fake pout. “My own daughter doesn’t trust me?”

            “Nobody trusts you,” called Stiles.

            Nodding at the other man, Scott murmured, “Thanks, Derek. This won't take long.”

            Malia tugged Stiles forward, then reached out and took something from his hand. She placed the surnatureil on the table. “You know what this is?” she asked.

            Peter’s eyebrows raised. From behind Scott, even Derek moved forward, frowning. “Where did you get this?” asked Peter, taking the thing before Derek could reach out.

            “We have friends,” answered Stiles testily. “Hunter friends. With weapons. Werewolf-killing weapons.”

            Peter turned the device over in his hands. “It’s an old model,” he said. “But still in working condition, it looks like.” He passed it to Derek, who sniffed at it distrustfully. “Derek, if you would be so kind as to demonstrate.”

            A flicker of annoyance ran through Derek’s expression, but he pressed the red button all the same. A high-pitched whining filled the loft, and Scott and Malia flinched away; but then Derek ran his finger along the side, and the screeching decreased in volume to just above a whisper.

            “What!” squeaked Stiles, reaching out to grab the thing. “Are you serious! The volume was _right there the whole time?_ ”

            “Yes,” answered Derek, plucking it out of Stiles’s hands, “idiot. It’s like an old radio.”

            “An old _radio?_ ” asked Stiles, in mock-disgust. “How old _are_ you?”

            “It’s not a radio,” growled Peter, looking disdainfully in between Stiles and his nephew. “It’s like a sonar. It can detect the presence of the supernatural. I’m shocked you managed to get a hold of it, to be honest. I know people who have been devoted to destroying every single one of these for years.”

            “Destroy them?” echoed Scott. “Why?”

            Peter’s eyes sliced across the room, lingering on Scott. His gaze seemed hyper-focused, as precise as if he were peering through a microscope. “Why?” he repeated. “Half of born wolves out there go on to lead a normal, human life. What would happen if hunters could find them without any investigation? Little machines like these have been killing us for decades, Scott.”

            Scott stepped forward, refusing to accept this. “But the Argent’s code-”

            “The Argents aren’t the only hunters out there,” said Derek, agreeing, for once, with his uncle. “And, although, believe me, it’s hard to believe - they aren’t even the worst.”       

            “Wait,” said Malia. “What do you mean? Born werewolves can have a human life?”

            That electrifying, laser-like focus in Peter’s eyes slid to Malia. “Of course,” he answered. “Lycanthropy is matrilineal. Barring extraordinary circumstances, sons rarely stay in the pack.”

            “Why?” asked Stiles.

            “Because,” replied Peter, with an exaggerated roll of his eyes, “one can’t mate within a family-pack, for obvious reasons, and mating with a member of another pack is a tricky business. So they generally take a human mate, and go on their happy human way.”

            “And why didn’t you do that?” asked Malia, and there might have been a hint of accusation in her voice.

            “I _said_ ,” Peter replied, sharp as knives, “extraordinary circumstances. Didn’t I? And our family was nothing,” he smiled at Derek, slimily; Derek did not return the expression, “if not extraordinary.”

            “Hold on,” said Scott. “This isn’t why we came to talk to you. We want to know about the…” he nodded at the device. “The thing.”

            “The surnatureil,” said Stiles.

            Peter and Derek looked at him with eyebrows raised.

            Defensively, Stiles added, “That’s what Allison said it’s called.”

            “That’s a portmanteau,” said Derek. “In French, it means something like supernatural-machine.”

            Stiles blinked. “Wow,” he said. “Little on-the-nose, huh?”

            “They’re called by many names,” Peter told them. “I met someone once who liked to call it the hunter’s little helper.” Peter peered down at the device, lost in the thought. “I killed him, of course,” he said mildly, looking up, “but I always thought it was kind of clever. Anyway, why _are_ you here? Can’t be just to share this new little discovery with us.”

            “No,” said Scott.

            “We’re here because that thing’s broken,” said Stiles, before Scott could continue. “It has a range of, what, one mile or so?”

            “Looks like it,” said Derek.

            “Then it _is_ broken,” he continued, “or else, I don’t know, we live in Supernaturaltown, USA.”

            Derek and Peter exchanged looks.

            “Oh, come _on_ ,” began Stiles.

            “To be fair,” said Malia, “this _is_ Beacon Hills.”

            This time, Scott reached out to take the device out of Derek’s hands. “Yeah, but this thing says that there are people out there who are supernatural and don’t even know it.”

            “Really?” asked Peter. “Like who?”

            There was an empty pause. And then Stiles sighed, and raised his hand. “Present,” he said.

            “Look,” said Scott, turning the thing around so that Derek and Peter could see the screen. “Those little dots are all the supernaturals around, right?”

            “Right,” said Derek.

            “Well then, look,” said Scott. “One, two, three, four, five. That,” he pointed to two dots on the screen, “must be you and Peter, and then these three are me and Malia and Stiles.” He paused, looked up at them, and repeated, “ _Stiles_. Who is completely human.”

            “Completely and totally,” added Stiles, for emphasis.

            Derek peered down at the thing thoughtfully, then glanced up at Peter. “Could be picking up remnants of the nogitsune,” he said. “Sometimes creatures can leave fingerprints on things, even if they’re already gone.”

            “No,” said Peter simply. “The machine’s right.”

            A silence swept in like a roaring wave, crashing against the four of them - Derek included - who stared with widened eyes at Peter.

            “What?” asked Malia.

            Glancing around at them, Peter said, “Seriously? None of you? Scott, how long have you two known each other again?”

            “That’s impossible,” said Scott, moving forward to stand ever so slightly in front of his friend. “If Stiles were supernatural, I think I’d know by now.”

            “ _Everyone_ in this town is supernatural, in one way or another,” Peter responded, in a bored drawl. “Stiles is no exception. Well,” he cocked his head slightly, “actually, he is quite the exception, although not in the way you’re thinking.”

            Malia growled, stepping forward to join Scott before Stiles. “What does that _mean?_ ”

            Ignoring Scott and Malia, Peter peered past them, at Stiles. There was a gentle frown on his brow. “You really don’t remember?” he asked.

            Stiles, face pale and guarded, said nothing.

            “Huh,” said Peter lightly, eyes locked on the boy. “I’d’ve thought having that fox rattling around inside your head would’ve knocked loose a few crucial memories. Guess not. You never really were that sharp, were you? Not even afterwards.”

            Derek surprised them all by speaking, his tone harsh. “After what?”

            Peter’s gaze raked over to Derek, then flickered once more back to Stiles. He straightened up slightly, and a faint smile traced over his face. “You haven’t always been like other kids, have you, Stiles? Not since you were a little boy. You were a sick kid, weren’t you? But you got better. And now you’re so smart, but in a very...specific way. Right? Hyper-focused sometimes, scatterbrained at others.”

            “Sure,” said Stiles, voice hard. “It’s called ADD. Nothing supernatural about it.”

            “But medication can’t even slow you down, can it, Stiles?” Peter purred. He seemed oddly satisfied, preening with the knowledge that he knew something they did not. “Never quite could. And those night terrors?” Peter clicked his tongue. “Those weren’t new when that demon possessed you, were they? No. You’ve been seeing things in the dark for a long time. That’s why you don’t trust anyone.”

            “He trusts me,” said Scott.

            “Maybe,” countered Peter. His voice raised, it echoed around the wide and empty space. “Or maybe Stiles knows that, when it comes down to it, he’ll always be the one walking away unharmed. Maybe that’s why he surrounds himself with people like you, friends so much more powerful than he is, and...utterly devoted to him.”

            “That’s not true,” said Stiles.

            Peter shrugged, raising his hands as if to ask, _Whatcha gonna do?_ “And maybe it’s unconscious. Just how your head is wired, kiddo.”

            “Listen,” said Malia, slamming her hands down on the table before them. “We came here for answers, and all you’re doing is coming up with some bullshit to confuse us. Do you know what Stiles is, or not?”

            “Of course,” hummed Peter. “I know exactly what Claudia turned him into.”

            “What?” said Stiles. Everything else in the room seemed to melt into the dark corners, until he could only see Peter. “What did you say?” His lips were numb. Pushing Scott and Malia aside, he leaned across the table, demanding, “How do you know that name?”

            “Claudia?” asked Malia, confused. “Who’s Claudia?”

            “Come on, Stiles,” muttered Peter, returning the movement, leaning in towards the teenager. “Why do you think I never bit you? I shouldn’t have to tell you that it was not out of the kindness of my heart.”

            Again, Stiles demanded, “How do you know her name?”

            “Because I was there,” Peter spat back at him. “I was there when she made the deal that changed you.”

            “Changed him?” asked Malia, taking hold of Stiles’s arm. “Into what?”

            “Doesn’t matter,” Peter replied. He never took his gaze off Stiles’s. “That’s just it, isn’t it? Doesn’t matter how or why, or into what. Just that it happened. Just that it took you. Just that you _changed_.”

            Scott took his friend’s shoulder, and pulled him back. “We’re leaving,” he said.

            Stiles shook him off, more violently than was entirely necessary. “Peter. How the hell do you know my mother’s name?” His voice was quieter now, and infinitely more dangerous. “And tell the truth, for once.”

            “Or what?”

            Peter grinned at him, a Cheshire cat smile, cunning and terrible. He straightened up, watching Stiles with some satisfaction.

            “Changelings,” said Peter, “may be supernatural, but they’re just as weak as you’ve always been. Shame,” he continued, with a sigh of mock-regret, “that your mother went and died for you, and you didn’t even get any powers for it. Hm?”

            It was then that Stiles broke, and he launched himself across the table, swinging a punch at Peter’s face; of course he missed, and Derek caught him, holding him back as Stiles kicked and squirmed in his grip. “Let me go!” he shouted. “Let me _go!_ ”

            That smile was still on Peter’s face as he backed away from Stiles. “Truth hurts,” he said simply. “Why do you think I kept it to myself for so long?”

            “Peter,” said Malia, who still seemed slightly confused.

            He stopped, then looked around at her. “Can I help-?”

            Her fist collided with the side of his face in one swift blow, and for half a second he swayed unsteadily, then fell to the ground, unconscious.

            Malia looked up at Stiles, expecting him to look comforted, maybe even grateful.

            Instead, his eyes were fixed on Peter in what could have been fear, and even in Derek’s strong hold, he was shaking so hard he could barely stand.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, Stiles's flashback from Monday's episode felt kind of like an odd homage to this fic. Gotta wait until the 3rd chapter for the real meat of that, though :) 
> 
> Lots of Hale background in this chapter.
> 
>  
> 
> [Listen to Claudia Stilinski's lullaby here.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8f8WYvAo-RA)

            When Peter awoke, he was still lying on the floor, a dull ache pounding in his head. Derek sat on the couch, a book in his hands. As soon as Peter made a quiet groan, dragging himself up to sitting position, Derek glanced up.

            “You know,” Peter began, glaring at his nephew. “You really could’ve moved me somewhere nicer.”

            “I could’ve,” replied Derek.

            Tugging on the table legs in an over-exaggerated attempt to get to his feet, Peter continued, “Really, I could’ve anticipated that from Malia, but…Stiles? What makes that kid think he can take me?”

            “I don’t know,” said Derek shortly. “Maybe the fact that you kept important information from him, made him look like an idiot about it, and then taunted him about his dead mother?”

            “I didn’t _taunt_.”

            “You taunted,” said Derek. He got up, crossed the room to stand before his uncle, arms crossed. “And now you’re going to tell me what the hell you were talking about.”

            Peter massaged his jaw, where Malia had hit him. “Where’s Stiles?” he asked, glancing around. “Doesn’t he want to hear?”

            “He will,” answered Derek. “But not from you. In fact,” Derek loomed over his uncle; in those years that he was away during which Peter had been comatose, he had finally grown those last few inches as to finally be taller than Peter, and he used it. “I don’t think you’re going to talk to Stiles ever again. Not after this.”

            “After _what?_ ” spat Peter, lip curling slightly. “You see? This is why I rarely tell the truth.” He put a hand on Derek’s shoulder, the crook of his neck, then lowered his voice, light eyes flickering up to his nephew’s gaze. “Always gets you so…riled up.”

            Derek shrugged off his touch. He seemed angrier than Peter had seen him in a long time, the stark lights of the loft reflected in his hazel-green eyes. They were the eyes of his father, not his mother: Talia’s irises had been a warm, earthy brown, so different from her brother’s clear, watery blues.

            Lowly, Derek growled, “If you ever talked about my mother the way you talked about his…”

            “Oh, please, Derek,” replied Peter disdainfully, pushing Derek ever so slightly away. “I talked about Talia like that all the time. You know how sisters can be,” he almost smiled, “right?”

            Derek supposed he had probably been angrier at Peter, at some point in the past. That seemed like the likeliest option. When Derek had torn out his throat, ascended to the birthright that was stolen from him when Peter murdered Laura – that fury came to mind, might have eclipsed that which he felt right now. But then, that had been a different kind of anger, one born of violence and revenge, hot and slick like blood on his fists. This was cold, hard, and he got the sense that Peter could tell.

            “Listen, Derek,” the older man said, but he threw his hands up as if in surrender, and very slowly backed away from Derek, heading around the table to put some space in between them. “Don’t look at me. For a very long time I was under specific orders _not_ to tell.”

            “What are you talking about?” demanded Derek. He had always had that same tone when he didn’t understand something, ever since he was a kid – a little bit indignation, a little bit apprehension, and a little dash of righteous fury. When Derek was younger, Peter had so loved baiting it out of him, pushing him up to an edge from which the only way down laid in blows.

            Peter let out a little sigh, leaning onto the table. He met Derek’s gaze. “Claudia Stilinski.” Derek’s expression didn’t change, didn’t budge an inch. “Come on,” hummed Peter, “don’t tell me you don’t remember? Then again, you were just a kid.”

            “You knew Stiles’s mother?”

            “Me? Not personally, not really. I don’t know how it started – Talia had me out working for the family, and I’d only just come home. With presents for you and your sisters, no less.” Peter smiled at Derek, a smile Derek so hated because his first instinct wasn’t to hate at all. “You know that necklace Laura always used to wear? That was when I gave it to her. Remember now?”

            Derek did remember. He had been little more than a child, and Peter had brought him a new game for the PlayStation, of which Talia had not approved but had reluctantly allowed in her home. In retrospect, Derek did remember his mother threatening to have a stern conversation with Peter, but he did not think it had ever happened. It had ended up being a busy winter for Talia Hale.

            “I remember that,” Derek said guardedly. “What does that have to do with Stiles’s mother?”

            Peter watched his nephew for a moment, then shook his head, turning away. He looked out the window at downtown Beacon Hills, the lights below him twinkling like a reflected map of the stars. “Think back, Derek. Don’t you remember?” he asked, his voice quiet and still. If Derek hadn’t known better, he might have thought there was a tinge of regret in his uncle’s voice. Regret – or pity.

            Something washed over Derek, a sense memory, a glimpse of the past. The stink of illness hanging about the house, brought in by a visitor. A coming death.

            Derek felt something loosen in his chest, a pain pricking in his heard. “She was ill,” he said. “She was dying.”

            “No.”

            Brow furrowed in confusion, Derek looked up. With one grave eye, Peter glanced around at him.

            Peter said, “He was.”

\---

_12 Years Ago_

            “ _Bayu-bayushki-bayu, nye lozhisya na krayu_ …”

            Gently, Claudia Stilinski sang a lullaby to her son, brushing her fingers along his sweat-drenched brow as she did so. The song used to be one of his favorites; at bedtime, he would hum it along with her, even if he did not understand the words. Words which were in his mother’s language, the language she no longer spoke and hadn’t in many years, not since her own parents, the immigrants that they were, had passed. She herself could barely remember the translation anymore. Something about a little grey wolf.

            Her husband entered the room, slipping behind her. Before he said anything to her, he leaned over their son, kissed him on the forehead, then took his hand. “How is he?” he asked his wife, his voice low.

            She shrugged. “Sleepy.”

            In his hand, Samuel Stilinski held up a small bag. “I packed everything,” he said. “We should take his pillow, too. He doesn’t sleep well without his own pillow.”

            Claudia didn’t say anything, still brushing along her son’s brow. The child was still a toddler, and his tiny body lay stiffly beneath the blankets, tight spasms occasionally jerking down his spine. When Claudia did not move, her husband let out a tight sigh, and sat down on the side of the bed.

            “Claudia,” he began. “We talked about this.”

            “Look at him,” she replied, her voice very quiet. “So peaceful. We can go when he wakes up.”

            Lips tight, he said nothing for a moment. He looked down at his son.

            She trailed her finger down the side of the little boy’s face.  “He’ll be all right,” she whispered. “You’ll be fine, sweetheart. My love. You’ll be just fine.”

            They took him to the hospital on a Thursday.

            On Sunday, he came home.

\---

            “Usually,” Peter began, settling into Derek’s loft, kicking his feet up on the table, “and when I say usually, I mean the past few _centuries_ – we raise our children by ourselves. Pups stay in the pack almost exclusively until they start getting a handle on their powers, at least.” He peered at Derek. “You remember being homeschooled, don’t you?”

            “Vaguely,” answered Derek, watching Peter from across the room. “Only until about third grade.”

            “That’s right,” uttered Peter, nodding, glancing out the window once more. “Your mother enrolled Laura in junior high. What a mistake.” Abruptly, he fell silent. Derek hesitated, cautious and uncertain. Just as he opened his mouth to speak, Peter continued.

            “Talia,” he began, saying her name as if it were barbed, as if it pierced his mouth on the way out, “thought it best that you kids grew up human. Human as possible, anyway. Even back then, we weren’t what we once were. It still – _pains_ me, to think of her stupidity, but…” he shook his head. “She was training you for the outside world. As if you would be safe there. As if _together_ wasn’t the safest place to be.”

            “You know what fire does to a packed room, Peter,” said Derek flatly. “Sometimes together is the most dangerous place. Anyway,” he continued, ignoring the stricken look of fury pulsing across Peter’s face, “what does this have to do with anything?”

            “ _Listen_ , Derek. I swear. You have no patience.”

            This much was true. Clenching a fist, Derek began, “Peter-”

            But his uncle relented. “You were in grade school when my sister decided to send you kids out into the real world. Cora was a preschooler. And who ran the best daycare center in Beacon Hills?”

            Peter’s arched eyebrow answered his own question. “My mother…knew Claudia Stilinski?”

            “Not at first,” Peter said pointedly, raising one finger. “Not all that well. But the woman doted on Cora. Your baby sister always was a little sharper than the rest of you, wasn’t she? Always picked things up that much quicker. Mrs. Stilinski, God rest her soul, loved that child. Used to drop Cora off at the shop. She started talking with Talia, and then she started coming to the shop on her own, and then she started asking questions.”

            Before her death Talia Hale had run a shop in Oldtown which had a reputation for being a little bit Wicca, a little bit New Age-y. It was not exactly a well-respected place amongst the locals, but that was less because of the cheap stock and more because of the strangers who would pass through town, strangers Talia would usher behind the counter, into the back of the store. The Hales were a family of werewolves, well-respected throughout the state; and yet, for the human residents of Beacon Hills (not that there were all that many, although there were more back then), it was somehow much easier to imagine shady business deals and mafia-like transactions.

            Derek watched Peter.

            “What kind of questions?”

\---

            The Hale house was more full than it had been in weeks: Peter had only just returned from the business Talia had sent him to take care of up north, and he had brought back each and every Hale he’d brought with him. “We lost two,” he’d told Talia, trying to contain the excitement and pride at finally being used as Talia’s right hand. “But they were Omegas we’d recruited. So we’re all alright.”

            Maybe Talia hadn’t approved of this glib attitude, but she said nothing about it. “That’s a beautiful necklace, Laura,” she said, watching her eldest daughter with love in her eyes. “What do you say?”

            Laura, who was younger than Peter by only six years, and had always regarded him more as a brother than an uncle, held the pendant in one hand. “Thanks, Peter,” she said. “Although you could’ve gotten something maybe a little less creepy."

            “There’s nothing creepy about spirals, little wolf.” _Little wolf_ : she so hated that moniker, which was why Peter kept using it. “They’re a symbol of promise.”

            Laura seemed doubtful. “They’re a symbol of vendetta.”

            “And what is a vendetta, really,” Peter asked, with a satisfied, wolfish grin, “but a promise by another name?”

            “A violent promise,” Laura said.

            Shaking her head, Talia said, “It doesn’t have to be. Not always. But while we’re on the subject,” she turned to her brother, “I’m not happy with you bringing home trash for my son, Peter.”

            “Trash?” he echoed innocently. In the other room, Derek played with one of his cousins on his PlayStation, chattering excitedly as they did so. “The kid loves it!”

            “He needs focus,” said Talia, with a heavy-lidded look that her son would inherit. “He could’ve used a symbol like Laura’s.”

            “Oh, please. I wasn’t about to give my nephew jewelry, Talia.”

            “He’s just _beginning_ to learn to shift, Peter-”

            Sharply, Peter asked, “And why should I get him a triskelion? Doesn’t he already have one?”

            Talia didn’t look away from her brother’s gaze, but he knew what the jagged look in her eyes meant, the distinct way she did not look at her daughter. Yes, they had a talisman for Hale children to learn how to control the transformation, but Laura had not quite yet grown out of it. In reality, Peter thought it was a useless token that Talia had adopted in order to be gentle to her children. Pain taught control, and anger, and sometimes fear. These were all things Talia sought to spare her children. It made them, Peter thought, weak.

            There was a knock on the front door; all three wolves, sister, brother, and daughter, all looked up. They heard the door open, and a woman’s voice: “Oh, hello-” which was then interrupted by a male voice which they all knew so well, gentle and deep but decidedly human.

            Stephen Hale, Talia’s husband, swept his four-year-old daughter into his arms before the open door, gentle scolding her. “Cora! You don’t open the door all by yourself. You know better.”

            A woman stood at the door: fair skin dotted with the occasional dark mole, long, thin hair and deep brown eyes. Her button nose was running slightly, and the stench she brought with her made even Derek, from the other room, fall quiet.

            Talia got to her feet, heading towards the door. “Hello,” began the woman, with a fleeting little smile. “I’m Claudia. I know Cora. I mean – from daycare, I take care of her. As you do too, I guess. I mean, I’m sure you do, it’s just that I’m guessing that you’re her father because I’ve never actually met you and you seem so-” she stopped herself, closed her eyes as if to regroup, then gave another uncertain smile. “Is Talia here?”

            “Yes,” said Talia, striding down the hallway. She returned Claudia’s smile. “Claudia Stilinski, what a surprise. This is, in fact, my husband,” she said, stopping before the door and nodding to the man holding Cora. “Stephen,” she said to him, “this is Claudia. Claudia, Stephen.”

            Claudia held out her hand. “Pleasure to meet you, Stephen.”

            “You too,” he said, readjusting Cora in his arms. “Baby girl, would you help me out?”

            His own hands too full of his daughter to shake Claudia’s, Cora reached out one of her own in lieu of her father’s. At this, Claudia’s face lit up with a surge of joy and love. And something else was there too, something that stank through the whole house. Sadness. Deep, blooming, boundless sadness.

            Cora and Claudia shook hands. Talia was impressed that her daughter did so without any tears. Those hands smelled sick: they smelled like death, but not her own. Talia had not encountered this scent for some time, and she suspected that the rest of her family could barely even place it. Claudia’s hands smelt of a dying child.

            “Stephen,” said Talia. “Would you take Cora into the other room?”

            Taking the hint, Stephen nodded. “Nice to meet you, Claudia,” he said, then he turned and hurried away, back to Laura and Peter.

            In the doorway, Claudia stood for some time in timid silence, not quite willing to look Talia in the eyes. “Come on inside,” said the Alpha, ushering Claudia in through the door, closing it behind her. “Kind of chilly out there, isn’t it? And they said there wouldn’t be any more cold snaps this winter. Don’t they know January’s always the coldest month of the year?”

            Now that the child was gone, Claudia’s expression had dropped. She did look cold, but also harassed and, underneath it all, frightened.

            “Can I get you something?” asked Talia, leading the woman into her kitchen. “Some coffee? Please, have some tea. I have a friend who brings me a delicious blend, excellent for your health.”

            “Talia,” said Claudia, suddenly.

            The woman glanced at Claudia with dark eyes. “Yes?”

            She did not stutter, but it sounded like she almost did. “I need something. From you.”

            Talia raised an eyebrow, then went to the cabinet, turning on the electric kettle. “What can I do for you?”

            Slowly, Claudia lowered herself to a seat at the kitchen table. “I…”

            She broke off. Talia paused, then turned to look at her.

            Claudia looked, oddly, mortified, as if she was sure that this was all some misunderstanding, and she was ashamed to say it out loud. Sensing that this woman was about to, once more, surprise her, Talia said nothing.

            Taking a deep breath as if to fortify her own confidence, Claudia said bluntly: “I don’t know what you are. My parents told me stories of the  _dola_ and the  _boginki_ , but I'm not sure they are called the same thing in this country. But I know you're something. I may not know enough to tell what, but I’m not sure I care. I need help.”

            She peered up at the woman with pleading eyes.

            Talia stared at her. This had not been what she expected.

            “My son is dying,” she said. “I’ve heard stories of spirits. Creatures. Of…things.”

            The kettle clicked, water boiling. “Things,” repeated Talia, her voice very light.

            With a shaken determination in her eye, Claudia nodded.

            “Things,” she said, “that you can make deals with.”

\---

            Derek was not sure he had heard his uncle correctly.

            “Deals?” he echoed.

            Gravely, Peter nodded. “Humans think we supernaturals are all alike,” he muttered. “That’s why we get such a bad rap, you know. Yes, you _should_ be afraid of most things out there in the dark. Most of them have…less than noble intentions.”

            “Like you?”

            Peter clicked his tongue, holding up a finger. Then, pointedly, he said, “Well, maybe. But Claudia wasn’t coming to make a deal with _me_.”

            A frown creasing his otherwise unlined brow, Derek asked, “Why would she come to us? What did she think we were?”

            By now, the sun had sunken beneath the horizon, and Derek leaned against the table, lost in the story. “From what I found out from Talia later,” Peter said, with a slight sigh, “the woman was raised in an extremely superstitious Russian household.” He rolled his eyes. “Slavs are the worst. All kinds of creatures, and for some reason humans think anything with glowing eyes or a set of claws have the answers to everything. I mean, _sure_ , we might’ve had a few pacts with some so-called mythological creatures, but that was practically dying out under Talia’s hand.”

            This seemed to be news to Derek. “Pacts?” he asked, certain he had misheard.

            With a dubious look at his nephew, Peter responded. “What did you do when you were a kid, when you wanted something to go your way?”

            A memory sparked in Derek’s mind, an answer that made perfect sense according to some rule of logic that Derek could not remember learning, only knowing. “Milk and bread,” he said. “In the laundry room.”

            Peter nodded. “You remember all those wooden trinkets your grandfather used to whittle? What were those for?”

            Derek blinked. “They were…good luck charms. Just toys.”

            “Not toys,” said Peter, shaking his head. “Sacrifices. And what do you think your Talia was doing with Laura and your aunts in the woods under the harvest moon?”

            Derek began to protest, “That was just tradition-”

            “Yes, but it was tradition for a _reason_ , Derek.”

            Peter looked as if he was going to say more, but he snapped his mouth shut, pressing his lips together tightly for one moment, a low-burning anger behind his eyes.

            “Talia did this,” he spat, but his disdain was layered just above a haze of what might have been grief. “She raised you with no respect for the forest. No interest in our heritage, no desire to understand _why_ we uphold traditions.” For one moment, he paused, a silence that felt deep. A silence that might have been in mourning. “In any case,” he continued, “Claudia Stilinski thought she’d figured something out. We weren’t exactly what she thought we were, but you remember how your mother was. She was too weak, when it came to children. How could she say no to a dear, sweet fellow mother?”

            Derek stared at his uncle. A chill sank into the base of his neck, slowly trickling down his spine. “What did she do?”

            Light blue eyes flickered up to meet his nephew’s gaze. “Talia helped her,” said Peter simply, “of course.”

\---

            Stephen Hale sat in bed, lamplight casting shadows on the wall as his wife paced up and down the carpeted floor. A look of bewildered befuddlement on his face, he asked: “You did _what?_ ”

            “ _I_ didn’t do anything,” replied Talia, almost icily. “Think of it as…a referral.”

            “A referral? To an...evil creature?”

            “It’s not evil,” she snapped. “A few promises, a few little spells, and no little boys have to die.”

            “Talia,” said Stephen seriously, setting aside his book. “I love you. And God knows I put up with my fair share of bullshit I don't understand with this family. But listen to me.” He leaned forward on the bed, reaching out towards her, as if begging. “Sometimes bad things happened,” he said. “Sometimes, children don't survive, and there's nothing you can do about it. You can’t control everything. Regular people shouldn’t spend their lives trying to trick fate.”

            “It’s a good thing, then,” she said testily, “that I’m not a regular person.”

            Stephen said nothing.

            “A mother has a responsibility to her children,” she huffed, sweeping her long hair back. “I would never stand in the way of that bond. It’s not my place.”

            There was a long silence. Then, almost distraught, Stephen asked, “Why does it feel like you just made a deal with the Devil?”

            “No,” said Talia, slipping into bed beside her husband. She took his hand, and she looked into his hazel-green eyes – eyes that their son inherited – and she said: “Not me, Stephen. Not me.”


	3. Chapter 3

> **allyasavestheday** : Wait, what? How could you be supernatural?
> 
> **bilesbilinski** : I KNOW. I’m human, I never work out, and my weapon of choice is a baseball bat. Uselessness is like my primary character trait!
> 
> **allyasavestheday** : Did you ask Deaton?
> 
> **bilesbilinski:** Yeah, after Peter.
> 
> **allyasavestheday:** And??
> 
> **bilesbilinski:** Doc said he never heard of Derek’s mom doing anything like this
> 
> **bilesbilinski:** But he also said she had a lot of secrets
> 
> **allyasavestheday:** But you can cross mountain ash.
> 
> **bilesbilinski:** So can Lydia. And Lydia didn’t know she was supernatural at first either, and she’s still pretty much human too, except for a few things.
> 
> **bilesbilinski:** also I gave her the lipstick you sent btw
> 
> **allyasavestheday:** Oh, thanks
> 
> **allyasavestheday:** How many supernaturals are there in Beacon Hills, anyway?
> 
> **bilesbilinski:** Allison, tbh, you don’t want the answer to that question
> 
> **allyasavestheday:** Has the bestiary helped at all?
> 
> **bilesbilinski:** Not really. Not like I have a specific set of powers to look up, and there was no entry under ‘changeling’
> 
> **allyasavestheday:** I don’t think you’re a changeling, Stiles, whatever that even is. Peter’s the one who told you that, and Peter lies.
> 
> **bilesbilinski:** Yeah, ok
> 
> **bilesbilinski:** But to be honest with you, allison
> 
> **bilesbilinski:** this time I think he’s telling the truth

\---

            “So what?” asked Lydia, sitting in the library with Stiles. They both had a free period; Stiles had been pleasantly surprised to find out that that online course on pharmacology  he’d taken in the summer - mostly because the syllabus had mentioned covering herbs and plants used in alchemy, which he thought might be relevant to the druidic duties of a wannabe-emissary - actually counted as a fourth year of science. So he had more free periods than any of their friends except for Lydia, who’d had enough credits to graduate at the end of junior year.

            Her lips the sweet melon pink of her favorite lipstick, Lydia watched Stiles with just a hint of disdain.

            “Maybe you are - something,” she whispered to him, under her breath to avoid detection by the sophomore sitting a table over. “Does it really matter? Seems like everybody in this town is something, and yet for the most part we all pretty successfully masquerade as a regular human city.”

            “Yeah,” countered Stiles, “except for the fact that _nothing_ about Beacon Hills is regular or human, at all? And the fact that we are literally living in Murdertown, USA?”

            Charily, she corrected, “Accidental Death Town, if anything.”

            “Look,” began Stiles, leaning across his AP Stats homework, “when you found out you were a banshee, you went to Peter to figure out what you were too. Remember? So don’t judge, okay?”

            “I am judging,” retorted Lydia, smoothly flipping her hair behind her shoulder. “But then again, that’s nothing new.”

            Their conversation was thankfully obscured by some super-senior arguing with the librarian at the front desk: they had collectively as a pack decided that it was time to stop talking about serious supernatural stuff out loud so casually in public, because they had been getting a lot of weird looks lately. Although, Stiles thought, honestly, now that they knew 90% of Beacon Hills was, in fact, supernatural, it made a lot more sense why more people didn’t interrupt them and ask what the hell they were going on about more often.

            “Besides,” continued Lydia, “I went to Peter because he bit me, and, unlike you, I could actually _do_ things I didn’t understand.”

            “Finding dead bodies is not a supernatural power! If it is, then so is my awesome SAT score!”

            “Stiles, please,” said Lydia, rolling her eyes. “You got a 2190, not a perfect score.”

            Something sparked in his eyes and he leaned in towards her. “No, but you did! More proof that the SAT is linked to supernatural ability.”

            “I got a perfect score in October of sophomore year,” she replied. “Before I got bitten, and before any powers started showing up. Admit it, Stiles, you’re just smart.”

            Stiles found it ironic that, after all these years, it was Lydia telling him this, instead of the other way around. He leaned back in his seat, glancing around at the bookshelves surrounding them. They were in the English poetry section of the library, surrounded by tomes that looked older than the library itself, interspersed with the occasional modern-looking Penguin Classics binding.

            Flipping through her notebook, Lydia let out a small, annoyed sigh. “But you don’t have any powers. So whether or not you’re a... _thing_ , doesn’t really matter. You’re still you, and that _you_ is-”

            “Useless,” offered Stiles. “Weak?”

            “- _human_ ,” she finished, shooting a glare at him, “for all intents and purposes, anyway. I don’t think it matters what you are, Stiles. I think it matters what you do.”

            Stiles didn’t say anything for a moment.

            Then he began, “Yeah, but what if-”

            “And I don’t think you have any latent powers just waiting to be awoken, either,” she added, getting back to work. “You’ve had more than enough opportunities for them to manifest and save the day, and they haven’t.”

            “That’s not what I was gonna say,” said Stiles.

            The librarian, who had finished her argument, passed by them with an emphatic, “ _Shhh!_ ”

            Lydia said, “Sorry,” to the librarian, then looked back at Stiles. She did not look like she believed him. “What were you going to say, then?”

            The two of them looked at each other. Lydia paused; she tried not to let it show on her face, but she saw how something changed in Stiles’s expression, the darkened eyes, the clench in his jaw. She had seen it before, but she was not sure what it meant: either he was building up a shield, or he was tearing one down.

            Lowering his voice, Stiles said, “Peter called me a changeling.”

            Lydia watched him, a slight crease in her brow. “So?”

            “ _So_ ,” he continued, nostrils flaring, as if upset that she didn’t see it. “What if I’m...not me?”

            She stared at him. “You’re definitely you, Stiles. You have always been this irritating.”

            “Yeah, but – you haven’t known me my whole life. What if I _did_ change? What if I’m not who I thought I was?”

            “What about Scott?” asked Lydia, doing her best to dismiss this new theory. “He’s known you since, like, kindergarten.”

            “But that’s the thing,” he pressed, leaning even further across the table. Seemingly without his knowledge, his voice was rising incrementally. “Peter was right, when I was a kid – like _kid-_ kid, we’re talking toddlers here – I _was_ sick. I was in the hospital for days before I miraculously got completely, one hundred percent better, and – and here’s the thing, I had no idea about this. I don’t remember that at all.”

            “How do you even know it happened, then?”

            He shrugged. “When I was in the hospital last year I checked my file.”

            Lydia did not think she had it in her to express how absurd that was. The librarian was eyeing them again, so Lydia lowered her voice as she asked, “You stole your own medical records?”

            “Actually, legally speaking, I didn’t have to steal it. I mean I did, but I didn’t have to. My dad’s a cop, I know my rights.”

            She let out a breath, shaking her head. “Oh, Stiles.”

            “What? Wouldn’t anyone?”

            “No!”

            “Okay, that’s not the point!”

            His chest was heaving slightly. Her eyes lingered on his face, which was only slightly paler than usual, then she checked his pupils, which were not dilated. “All right,” she said, her voice low and calm. “Then go ahead and tell me your point. But can you take a deep breath first, please? For me?”

            Deep, controlled breathing were in fact much better for panic attacks than a kiss was, as she had found out later when she looked into it. A slight guilt had settled in her stomach for that, because kissing someone having a panic attack could actually make it worse. Maybe that was why she now felt oddly responsible for keeping Stiles as emotionally stable as she could.

            Something seemed to click in his head when she said this. He nodded, leaned back in his seat. Took a few deep breaths. She waited for him.

            “My point is,” he continued, once he had calmed himself down, “that Scott didn’t know me back then. One of the only people who did was actually murdered by our evil druid English teacher a while ago, so, like, that’s not an option.”

            “Well,” said Lydia, eyes wide, as if pretending to tell him a secret. “There is _one_ person who might be able to tell you, you know.”

            Stiles blinked at her. “Really?” he asked. “Who?”

            She rolled her eyes, almost impressed at his ineptitude. “Someone who was there the whole time. Someone who’s known you from the very start.”

            “Lydia,” he said. “I don’t have any friends from when I was an _infant_ -”

            “I’m not talking about friends,” she sighed. “I’m talking about your dad.”

            “ _Shhh!_ ”

            “Oh my God, sorry!” said Stiles loudly, whipping around to face the librarian. Expression tight and pinched, she only glowered back at them.

            Lydia sincerely doubted that Stiles had not yet come to this obvious conclusion, and from the look on his face it seemed as if she was right. If he had tried asking his father already and come up with nothing, she knew that he would immediately launch into a recap of what he’d said and move on with the investigation. From his stiff silence, she could tell that he had not yet gone down that route.

            Something occurred to her. “Are you still using that supernatural machine thing?” she asked. “Did you see what it said about your father? If he’s a supernatural, then that would explain why-”

            “He’s human,” said Stiles sourly, cutting her off. He tapped a pencil against the desk. “I haven’t talked to him about this yet. I mean, I literally had to clue him in on this whole supernatural business. There’s no way he knows anything.”

            “He’ll be able to tell you that you are definitely _you_ ,” Lydia pointed out. “And isn’t that all you need?”

            “No. Look, Lydia, this is serious, okay? There’s something going on here that I don’t understand, and I hate not understanding things.”

            “Despite the fact,” she countered, watching him dubiously, “that nobody could possibly hope to understand all the ridiculously unreal supernatural happenings that have gone on in this town for the past few years?”

            “All evidence to the contrary,” he muttered, in reply, “yes.”

            There was a short silence between them.

            Lydia opened her notebook once more, still not convinced. “Alright, then,” she muttered. “I suppose I can’t stop you from obsessing, as usual. But whatever you find out – and my money’s still on nothing – I think the real question is… does it even matter?”

            In disbelief, he stared at her. “Of course it matters,” he said.

            She eyed him, and gave a vague sort of shrug, but otherwise did not respond to this.

\---

            December arrived in Beacon Hills heralded by a dense wet gloom and a cold that soaked all the way through the fingers, a chill that slowly crept its way up the arms to leach the warmth from your insides. Damp meant more accidents, maybe, but less crime, and Sheriff Stilinski came home early on a school night, shedding his coat at the front door. He stopped, sniffed the air, and then headed down the front hall towards the kitchen, where he could hear the sounds of the sink running, and smell the distinct scent of something badly burnt.

            Stiles held a pan encrusted with something blackened and burnt underneath the faucet. The water drowned out the sound of the Sheriff approaching, so he cleared his throat to get his son’s attention.

            Instantly, Stiles’s gaze snapped over to him. “Oh,” he said. “Hi, Dad.”

            “Hi,” answered the Sheriff. “What’s this?”

            “I, uh. Tried to make dinner.”

            “Tried to.”

            “Yes. Obviously, as you can see, it did not go entirely as planned.”

            The Sheriff let out a little sigh, then glanced around the room, searching for any other damage. “Well, it’s nice of you to try, although it’s probably time to admit it – your culinary expertise doesn’t go much farther than heating up corn dogs.”

            “And microwaving pizza,” added Stiles. “Which is actually a super convenient skill, given that I actually just ordered Domino’s.” The doorbell rang, and he grinned. “Hey! Good timing.”

            They settled in to a dinner of Veggie Supreme and Meat Lovers Delite (“How come you get the pepperoni, and I get the veggie?” “Because it’s healthy,” Stiles replied, tearing the last two pieces of Meat Lovers off for himself). For a while, they talked and joked. It had been a while since they sat down, just the two of them, and spent some time together, and Stiles could tell that his father really appreciated it.

            He hated himself for the questions he was about to ask.

            “Hey, Dad,” he said, as his father poured himself the last of the Sprite they were sharing. The Sheriff didn’t quite answer more than a pleased monosyllabic grunt. Tentatively, Stiles poked further. “Can I ask you something?”

            “’Course,” answered his father, mouth full. He paused, chewed, then looked at Stiles with one eyebrow raised. “Everything okay with Malia?”

            “What? Yeah. No, yeah. That’s not it.”

            There was a short silence. Stiles made a face, pinching his lips, not wanting to say more but knowing he couldn’t stop himself.

            “Do you think…do you have any idea…that I could, might be…supernatural?”

            The Sheriff blinked at him. “Like Scott?” Stiles nodded, and the Sheriff considered this. “I don’t know,” he answered seriously. “Have you been bitten by any creatures with claws and fangs, lately?”

            He was not serious, but the inaccuracy bothered Stiles, who began haltingly, “Actually, Dad, it’s not _any_ werewolf, it’s really just an Alpha, so. I mean. No.” He hesitated, collected himself, then restarted. “But I’m not talking about that. I mean, before that. Did I ever… was there ever something that happened to me that maybe you thought was weird? Or, like. I somehow changed? It would’ve been when I was just a kid.”

            The Sheriff regarded his son warily, but Stiles saw something else creep into his eye. Concern. He did not like the path down which this conversation went.

            “No,” he answered shortly. “Why?”

            Ignoring the _why_ , Stiles pressed on. “Okay, how about when I was little, and I got sick. Do you remember that?”

            “Do I remember that?” echoed the Sheriff. “You were four years old and in the hospital, of course I remember that.”

            “Okay, yeah, good. Right.” He paused. “What did I have?”

            The Sheriff didn’t answer this right away, watching his son with what might have been pain on his brow. “A seasonal illness,” he said simply. “That’s what they told us.”

            “That’s what they told you, after…”

            “It was a misdiagnosis. Stiles, why are you suddenly so interested in this?”

            “Look, Dad, listen to me,” he continued, watching him intently, almost hungrily, from across the table. “I got better though, right? Just, _boom_ , like that.”

            Nothing. The Sheriff nodded.

            Stiles licked his lips nervously, leaned across the table. “Then Mom got sick,” he said.

            Immediately, the Sheriff was shaking his head. “I don’t know where you’re going with this,” he said. “And you know, I’m really not sure it’s a good idea to drag this all back up again, it’s been ten years, Stiles-”

            “Wait, wait, wait!” begged Stiles, as his father began to get up, dishes in hand. “Just listen to me, please. I have to know, Dad. Come on.”

            The Sheriff hesitated for a moment, then sat back down. He let out a breath, then looked up at his son. “You have to know what?” he asked.

            Stiles didn’t say anything at first, and the silence between them cloaked the entire house in a kind of silent grief, the kind they were not used to piercing through.

            “I’m…not sure that I’m who you think I am.”

            The Sheriff stared at him. “What?” he asked. “You’re my son.”

            “Okay,” replied Stiles, without meeting his father’s gaze. “But…what if I’m not?”

            “Stiles,” said the Sheriff, “I was there when you were born, and every day since. I can tell you, for sure, that you are definitely my child.

            Stiles said, “Mom didn’t think so.”

            This hit like a brick against his father, who stopped, jaw clenched, and then closed his eyes for one moment. And then he opened them again, and he began, voice low, “Your mother had good days and bad days, Stiles. It was all part of her illness. I know it was hard on all of us, especially her, but she loved you. That’s what matters.”

            “No, it’s not,” protested Stiles. “Dad. What if she was right?”

            “She was sick,” said the Sheriff, shaking his head.

            It was inconceivable to Stiles that his father would not entertain this idea, that he wouldn’t even consider the possibility. “Dad!” he said, and his voice was rising, although with anger or fear or something else, he wasn’t sure. “She didn’t _recognize_ me. Dad, she was afraid of me.””

            The Sheriff corrected, “She couldn’t recognize anyone, Stiles. Not at the end. It was the disease, and you know that.”

            Stiles didn’t know that. Nobody knew that, not for sure. And they could no longer ask his mother, because Claudia Stilinski was buried in the ground now, in a cemetery at the edge of town. He couldn’t say anything for a few minutes, couldn’t come up with a single comment that wouldn’t wound his father.

            Reaching across the table, the Sheriff tried to take his hand. “Stiles…”

            Stiles retracted his hand swiftly, as if he had been burned. He stared past the Sheriff, into the distance, at something only he could see. Then, voice breaking slightly, he asked, “Did Mom know Talia Hale?”

            “What?” asked the Sheriff, blinking.

            “Derek’s mother,” Stiles added. “Did she and Mom know each other?”

            The Sheriff didn’t answer right away, then admitted: “Their paths might’ve crossed. Their youngest, she – she was in daycare with you.”

            Stiles wanted to be surprised at this, to be shocked that his connection to the Hales didn’t start with Derek. But even this could not distract him.

            “Did she ever ask Talia for something?” he pressed. “I don’t know, a favor, or a promise, something. Anything.”

            “What are you talking about?” asked the Sheriff heavily, mournfully. “You’re not making any sense.”

            He could talk around it no longer. “I think Mom made a deal,” said Stiles, finally, still unable to look his father in the eye. Outside, the night was still and quiet and cold. “She got sick, I got better. But I don’t think…” he stopped. The words were sticking in his throat, like a lump of charcoal stirring up bile in his stomach. He looked up to meet his father’s eyes. “I don’t think I was me anymore.”

            “You’re you,” said his father. He reached out, placed a reassuring hand on his son’s shoulder. “Believe me, you’re _you_.”

            “There are all kinds of stories,” continued Stiles, as if he had not even noticed his father’s touch. “About kids. Babies who get taken, by, you know, who knows what. About deals that get made. About…changelings.”

            “Changelings?” echoed the Sheriff. “Stiles, please-”

            Stiles took hold of his father’s arm, peering into his eyes intently. “What if Mom knew?” he murmured. “What if Mom did something, something that made me…different. And then she was the only one who knew.”

            “No,” said his father firmly. “She was the dementia, Stiles. You know this. We’ve been through this before, you _know_ this-”

            “Dad,” said Stiles. His expression had hardened now, from wildness, to fear, and now back to this stony resolve. “You know what the last thing she ever said to me was?”

            The Sheriff watched his son. His lips were tight and thin; whatever it was Stiles was about to say, his father did not want to hear it.

            “I never told you this,” continued Stiles. “Because you…you weren’t…” he trailed off, the ache in his voice too painful to subject his father to. “I didn’t want you to hurt more,” he said, quietly. “But I was in there with her. The whole time. And when things got bad, I wanted to lay down with her like I always did.”

            The hardness was still there, but it did not reach his eyes. Eyes, dark like his mother’s, that shone with angry tears he didn’t want to acknowledge. He stopped to swallow it again, keeping it no higher than his throat, keeping the hurt as still as he could, grief coating his insides like frost.

            His voice was very soft when he spoke again. “You know what she did?”

            The Sheriff thought, although he would not say it, that he did not want to hear.

            “She pushed me away,” said Stiles. Still, the tears did not yet break, slip down his cheeks like glittering glass in the kitchen’s light. “She didn’t know me. I was right there. And the last thing she ever said to me was: Where’s my son?” His voice broke. “What did you do to him?”

            There was a silence.

            Once again, the Sheriff reached out, but Stiles flinched away, unwilling to be touched. A muscle jumped in his jaw, and he couldn’t look up, couldn’t meet his father’s eyes. He got to his feet. He said nothing. Then he wiped at his eyes and left, heading out of the kitchen, immediately up the stairs.

            “Stiles,” said his father. As he heard his son’s footsteps up the stairs, the telltale sound of a bedroom door clicking shut, he got to his feet. Slowly, he made his way to his son’s room. Knocked on the door. “Stiles,” he said. “Please.”

            There was silence on the other side of the door. Sheriff Stilinski closed his eyes and leaned his forehead against the wooden frame. If Stiles were a child again, a sad, panicky child that he had been, his father might be able to open the door and hold him in his arms and make everything better with an embrace. But this was no longer who they were, and sometimes, the Sheriff knew, when Stiles got an idea into his head, he could not let it go.

            It frightened him. When this ended – if it did at all – he did not think it would end well.

\---

            They were all at Scott’s house. Stiles sat on a couch – the same couch on which he had sat almost a year ago now, bound and gagged with a fox spirit loose in his head. Lydia sat beside him. “Do you really think this is a good idea?” she asked, anxiety in her voice.

            “We have to do something,” said Scott, but the look in his eyes mirrored hers. “If this is what we have to do to get Stiles the truth, then I’m okay with it.”

            Kira, who stood beside Scott, looked down at Stiles kindly. “You know, this whole find-out-you’re-a-supernatural-creature thing isn’t all that bad,” she said, as if offering advice. “It could be a really good thing.”

            “He’s not supernatural,” said Lydia. Her fingers were splayed across his shoulder, a protective, gentle touch.

            “He might be,” said Kira.

            Scott and Lydia looked at her. Even Stiles glanced around, eyebrows raised.

            As usual, Kira looked uncomfortable with the attention. “Um…I’m…” she hesitated, then looked at Scott. So slight that the others might’ve missed it, he nodded at her. She took a small breath, then continued, “My mom was really impressed with you, Stiles. She said a regular human shouldn’t have been able to dispel the nogitsune like you did.”

            “Dispel?” repeated Stiles dubiously. “That thing used me to kill a dozen people.”

            “Yeah, but you got rid of it,” Kira pointed out, probably altogether more brightly than the situation called for. “When Scott and Lydia went inside your head. You were the one who forced it out of you. That takes real strength.”

            “So he’s strong,” countered Lydia, before Stiles could speak. “That doesn’t mean he’s a…whatever it is you guys think he is!”

            Stiles said it, because nobody else would. “A changeling.”

            Lydia just shook her head, sitting back on the couch, crossing her arms. “You’re just you, Stiles. Accept it.”

            At that moment, there was a knock on the door. Scott opened it to let Derek and Malia into the house. Before anyone could even greet them, Malia asked, “How is he?”

            “I’m fine,” called Stiles, from the couch. “And I’m also right here, so, you know. You can ask me, instead of talking about me like I’m not here.”

            Ignoring Stiles, Derek held up a small wooden container. A triskelion was carved onto the lid. “I brought them,” he said.

            “Okay,” said Scott, nodding. “You know how to do it?”

            “Not any better than you do.”

            “For the record,” Stiles interrupted, leaning forward, “if I get a say in this – let’s have Scott do it. I trust Scott.” At Derek’s expression, he added, “I also trust you, but, like, I mean. I trust Scott with my life. I’d trust you with, like, watching my cat.”

            “You don’t have a cat,” said Malia.

            “Exactly,” said Stiles.

            Derek watched Stiles with narrowed eyes for a moment. Then he shrugged, and looked back to Scott. “Fair enough.”

            Scott took the wooden container from Derek, delicately taking off the top to peer inside. He looked up at Stiles, then knelt down before his friend, looking him in the eye.

            “Stiles,” he said. “Whatever we find out… I need you to know that you’re still you. You, who you are _right_ now, who you’ve been since I met you…you’re still my best friend. It doesn’t matter if some weird freaky supernatural thing happened to you when you were a kid. None of that matters. You matter. To me.” He stopped, searching for something in Stiles’s eyes that he could not find.

            Scott got back to his feet. “Besides,” added Derek, “even if you are a changeling, it really makes no difference. Either way, you’re gonna have to live with it. So isn’t it actually better not to know?”

            “No,” said Malia, looking at Derek as if she didn’t recognize him. “He has a right to know what he is.”

            “Sure. But what are you gonna do, once you know? Hm? What can you do?”

            Stiles glared at Derek, as did Malia; for one second he thought that she might punch him, same she did to Peter. But instead she just moved forward, sitting on the armrest on Stiles’s other side, taking his hand. “I’m okay,” Stiles protested. “God. I’m getting performance anxiety and I’m not even doing anything.” He gestured at Scott. “Are we gonna do this?”

            Scott nodded. He moved behind the couch, then carefully reached into the container, slipping, as gently as he could, claws longer than his own onto his fingers.

            “Hope this works,” said Scott, placing the tips of the talons against Stiles’s neck. “You ready?”

            “Do it,” said Stiles. “Before I figure out that this is a terrible idea.”

            Wordlessly, Scott assented. He cut abruptly forward, claws piercing flesh, burrowing in deep at the back of Stiles’s neck.

            It hit him like a bullet to the head: Stiles’s jaw dropped in a silent scream, head thrown back, the softness of his throat exposed, vulnerable to a slash like that of claws, or teeth, or a knife.

            And then the memories came rushing in, cold water released through the floodgates of his mind.

\---

            It’s hazy: it comes in patches. A dying child; a frightened request; a belief in something that the Hales were not, but of which they might have known. A mother’s pain, and another’s promise.

            A sacrifice, an oath, and a feeling of rebirth filling up a child’s body like freezing water, like drowning in his lungs. Strong lungs, strong arms and legs. A miracle that lasts only until the next full moon. And the life slowly ekes out of her for two years, while a mother who is also an Alpha feels pity, but no regret. It is infinitely better, as she has always known, that a mother may be taken, so that a child may live.

\---

            Stiles awoke with a gasping wheeze, a shiver running all the way through his body, the memories from the eyes of a dead woman like a shadow in the back of his head, a haze hanging over Scott’s living room, the faces of his friends lit up with worry.

            “What’d you see?” asked Malia, a growl just beneath her words, like the whine of a coyote. “Do you know what you are?”

            He started to shake his head, still breathing in great gusts, as if trying to exorcise something out of his body. Scott shed the claws in the wooden container, then once more knelt down in front of his friend, almost unable to speak for the worry in his eyes. Lydia clutched on to Stiles’s arm, looking stricken: she too knew the electrifying pain of claws piercing flesh, and she feared for him. Kira and Derek hung back; Kira with her hands over her mouth, heart pounding, and Derek with cautious eyes, eyes that might have been tinged with a hint of jealousy. Every memory locked in those claws, Derek thought, belonged to him. He was the one who had offered the idea to begin with, but he was not about to pretend it did not hurt him, that Stiles had taken something so intimate as a look behind a Hale Alpha’s eyes.

            Catching his breath at last, Stiles began, “It’s not – it’s not me.”

            “Stiles,” said Lydia, holding onto him beseechingly. “You _are_ you-”

            “No, no, no,” he said, shaking his head. He looked at her, eyes wide. “No I mean. Yeah. I am. I’m me.”

            “What?” asked Malia. “So you’re – not a changeling?”

            Stiles shook his head. “Stiles,” said Scott. “What does that mean? What did you see?”

            Voice shaking, Stiles began to speak. “She made a deal,” he said, his eyes far away, still trying to decode what he had understood. “With – something. I don’t know what, just something big.” He looked up, across at Derek. “Something powerful. Something that scared your mother.”

            “And?” asked Malia, holding his hand tightly. “You think they took you?”

            “No,” he said, and the certainty in his voice surprised them all. “Not me.” He closed his eyes, clenching his jaw as if a shot of pain were running through him. Instinctively, Scott reached out, touched his friend’s other hand, trying to take his pain. Black veins did not raise; there was nothing to take. Nothing physical, at least.

            “Not me,” breathed Stiles, opening his eyes wide, as if afraid. “They didn’t take me.”

            He looked up at Scott, and the tears in his eyes made him look eight years old again, neither of them knowing how to talk about this thing called death to which they had only just been introduced.

            “They didn’t take me,” he repeated, voice frail. “They took my mother.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There will be one more teensy chapter, but no plans to run with this for a full-length fic :)


	4. Post-Script

            In the middle of the night, a powder blue Jeep rolled into an empty parking lot. The night was cold and damp, and the light of a waning crescent moon was dim even in comparison to the other stars in the sky. Stiles cut the engine, and for a while there was stillness and silence except for the organic nighttime sounds, and the gentle _tink-tink-tink_ of the cooling engine.

            On the passenger seat beside him sat a cardboard shoebox. In it were four items. Stiles removed the lid and took out two of them: glass mason jars, one larger than the other. One was filled halfway with water, delicate stems bursting into bright growths above the jar’s lip. The night’s darkness leached the colors out of the flowers, turning them into shades of gray. The other, smaller jar was empty.

             Stiles looked up and out the windshield. A copse of trees just beyond his windshield obscured his vision, prevented him from seeing any further.

            It was his imagination, probably, but there in the black trees he thought he saw something move, peering back at him through the darkness. It raised a skeletal hand and, slowly, beckoned him into the night.

\---

            _“You lied to us,” said Scott. His eyes pulsed red, fangs elongated, a growl condensing in the back of his throat._

_Peter scowled. “Is it a lie if I really believed it was true?”_

_“Yes!”_

_At this, Derek moved forward, stopping Peter before he could take one more step away from Scott. “Peter,” he said. “You called Stiles a changeling, but that’s not the deal Claudia Stilinski made with my mother.”_

_“She didn’t make the deal with_ Talia _,” spat Peter. “If my sister had that kind of power, do you really think we’d be here right now, a shadow of the pack we once were? All Talia did was point her the right way.”_

_“Wait,” said Malia, a frown creasing her brow. “If Stiles’s mom was the changeling, not him…then why does the machine still say he’s supernatural?”_

_Peter didn’t say anything. When he caught Derek’s eye, Derek raised his eyebrows pointedly._

_With a sigh like surrender, Peter turned around to face his daughter._

\---

            Outside of the car Stiles was cold. The glass jars in each hand felt cold to the touch, and his fingers were beginning to sting with the first trickles of numbness as he trudged through the trees, down a small, worn path. Even in the darkness the red of his hoodie stood out, but it seemed deeper somehow, more the rich crimson of arterial blood than the bright reflectory shine of brake lights.

            The trail was a familiar one. He followed the path dutifully for some time until, seemingly unbidden, he took an abrupt turn right, down a wide path of green bordered on both sides by stone markers, monuments to the dead.

            He stopped before a modest gravestone.

            “Hi,” he said.

            There was no reply. He was not sure if he had been expecting one or not.

            “I’ve been coming here for eight years,” he told the quiet cemetery. “Coming to visit my mother. And I just found out, this whole time…you weren’t even her. Not really.”

            He stared at the ground, a muscle jumped in his jaw.

            He knelt down on the wet grass, and lowered his voice to a whisper. “So I won’t feel bad about this.”

            Setting aside the empty glass jar, Stiles pushed one hand into the damp earth before the gravestone, tearing away the grass then digging his fingernails through claylike soil until he held a fistful of dirt in his hand. Taking the jar of flowers with his other hand, he carefully positioned it over the small indentation, effectively hiding it from any passerby. Then he raised his dirt-filled hand above the lip of the empty jar and slowly let the dirt fall from his hand into the glass. When he was finished, he took the jar, got to his feet, and wiped his palm on his dark jeans. Without looking back, he walked away from the grave, returning to the car waiting for him in the parking lot.

\---

            _“How was I supposed to know the details?” demanded Peter. “All I knew was that Talia pointed Claudia to something no one had disturbed in a long time. It’s old, much older than the Nemeton, older even than our own family. I knew Claudia Stilinski made a deal and I assumed that it had resulted, as these deals so often do, in the taking of a child as payment.”_

_“Stiles wasn’t payment for anything,” said Scott defensively. “He said they took his mother, not him. In order to save him.”_

_“That’s right,” answered Peter, nodding. He glanced around the loft. “May I ask why Stiles isn’t joining us tonight?”_

_“He’s had enough of your riddles,” said Malia. “The only reason we’re here is because you still know something we don’t.”_

_“And what is it, exactly,” Peter drawled, “that you think I know?”_

_“If we knew that,” countered Malia, “we wouldn’t be here, would be?”_

_“Peter,” said Derek, deliberately ignoring the pointed eye roll Peter gave, “why would the machine say Stiles is a supernatural?”_

_With a theatrical twirl towards his nephew, Peter began, “You said it yourself, Derek. Some creatures can leave their fingerprints long after they’re gone. In this case, it was more than that. It was more like…protection.”_

_“What does that mean?” asked Scott._

_Peter’s watery eyes slid over to him. “Think of it as a toll,” he said. “Once paid – once the bridge is crossed – it can never again be un-crossed.” He paused, then looked around at them all and asked, “Haven’t any of you ever noticed how damn_ lucky _that kid is? How many times has he been in mortal danger, and how many times has he escaped untouched?”_

_Derek said, “That’s because we’re usually there to save him.”_

_“Sure,” answered Peter. “But his mother made the deal before Stiles met any of us. How do you know you all weren’t part of the plan from the beginning? Scott. I doubt it was your idea to go poking around the woods for a dead body, three years ago. What if whatever’s protecting Stiles wanted you to get bit, so that all you powerful supernatural creatures would surround him, keep him safe from harm?”_

_Peter smiled at all of them._

_“Stiles may not be supernatural,” he said. “But that isn’t to say he doesn’t have supernatural protection.”_

\---

            Outside of town – far enough towards the agricultural land southeast of Beacon Hills that the roads were not paved with solid, impenetrable tarmac – Stiles turned the Jeep corner after corner, searching for the right place.

            “Come on, come on…” he murmured, peering at the roads before him. “Gotta be here somewhere.”

            Only a few minutes later, he stopped the car so abruptly that the seatbelt cut tightly into his neck. He pulled to the side of the road then, leaving the car idling, brights on, he grabbed the shoebox from the passenger seat and got out of the car, the door creaking as he slammed it shut behind him. He jogged forwards, framed by the lights of the car, until he reached the center of the dirt crossroads, where he dropped to his knees and once more used his hands to dig a shallow hole.

            He held the shoebox in his hand. He removed the lid.

            A jar of graveyard dirt. A plastic baggie containing bones from a black cat (bones he had ordered on the internet, so he could only hope they were the real deal). And a photograph of him, back when he was a child – a baby, really. Something he had photocopied from a page in an old family scrapbook. A photo of him before any other deal had been made.

            He lowered the box into the hole, and scraped the surrounding dirt back in to cover it up.

            Stiles slowly got to his feet. The bright lights of his car flooded the crossroads with illumination. Stoically, he stared forward. As if waiting.

            Behind him, there rang a sweet, gentle, familiar laugh.

\---

            _A knock on a door, come sunset._

_It opened a crack. A familiar blue eye greeted him, then the door swung open. Peter smiled smugly at him._

_“Well, well,” he said. “Thought I detected a whiff of Stilinski. Very distinct scent. A mix of anxiety, and over-reliance on Axe body spray.”_

_“Cut the crap, Peter,” said Stiles, his voice low. “I’m not here to listen to you pretend you know everything. I have a question.”_

_Peter tutted at the boy before him. “What would your friends think, knowing you came here all by yourself?”_

_“Yeah, well. My friends aren’t here right now.”_

_“No,” agreed Peter. “They aren’t.”_

_There was a silence. Stiles stood in the doorway without looking at Peter for a long moment._

_Then, he spoke. “The deal,” he said, “that my mother made.”_

_He glanced up at the other man._

_“How did she do it?”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ;)
> 
> I'll never write more of this. Feel free to appropriate it if you so desire (with credit, preferably).


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